During the Harlem Renaissance, when African Americans fought for civil rights and economic equality as black culture, arts, and music emerged. Claude McKay wrote the poem The Harlem Dancer in 1922, this poem was written to explain some of the struggles that African Americans faced during the Harlem Renaissance. The poem explains how sometimes in life we can fall under the control of the influences at work in society and lose sight of our best intentions in situations. This poem is about a dancer in a bar in Harlem, the dancer dances in front of a crowd of men and women who act like a group of wild animals. Men are not focused on coming to the bar and having fun, men's attention is on the dancer on stage. The dancer is fighting a personal storm but it doesn't show in the way she moves on stage, she knows it's not like her to be in a place like this, but she can't break the hold. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayIn the first line of the poem, the Harlem dancer, the setting is in a bar/night club, the bar is calm, everyone is filling up right now, in line four you can tell how the line is calm because the author states that her body sways as if she were singing a calm and graceful song. In the second line we give a better description of the dancer: “Her perfect, half-dressed body sways; this says that the tone of this specific line suggests that the dancer is belittling herself by being half naked in front of strangers. The positive diction was presented when the author started the poem by introducing the dance as a young prostitute In the time of the Harlem Renaissance this was normal for prostitutes but not for a classy lady, this kind of behavior would expose a woman's morals. In the third line the dancer's voice is compared to the flutes, the flutes make a sound of innocents, of peace and calm. The flute is used as a symbol of the innocents, the dancer is in a bar half naked but something in her scream is innocent. This phrase is also a metaphor because he compares it to something sweet and graceful, although it is in a place of drunkenness, screaming and males acting like teenagers. Another metaphor is used online when he states: "Blown by the players blacks on a picnic day." When someone thinks of a picnic, they think of sunshine, love, happiness and innocence. This indicates that the song the dancer sang must have been very peaceful because the picnic is cheerful and peaceful. Furthermore, the word Black Players stood out as if it didn't belong here. In the fifth line it states that the dancer danced with grace and calm, this indicated what kind of artist she was and knew how to remain at peace in a place of chaos. . In lines six it talks about how the light hangs loosely around her shape, this creates the atmosphere of the bar, it's dark, no one can see just the dancer on stage with the light hanging down showing her shape. The climax begins in this section because the audience begins to get carried away once the light perceives the figure of the dancer. Light can therefore also be a symbol of the dancer, when you think of light you think of a luminous passage, a passage to see and shine the light on her situations. In the seventh line the author talks about how the dancer looked proud: waving palms. When I think of palm trees, I think of beautiful trees, warm, sunny, tropical place. The swaying of the dancer is compared to that of a palm tree and her beauty is also compared to the beauty of the tropical palm tree. In line eight he indicates.
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